This book tells the story of an apparently territorial journey—the one between the village and the city—to capture some of the core fantasies and anxieties of the Indian civilization in the past ...
More

This book tells the story of an apparently territorial journey—the one between the village and the city—to capture some of the core fantasies and anxieties of the Indian civilization in the past hundred years. It looks at the vicissitudes of the metaphor of journey; profiles various heroes as they negotiate the transitions from the village to the city and back to the village; and focuses on the psychopathological journey from a poisoned village into a self-annihilating city. It contends that the decline of the village in the creative imagination of Indians in recent decades has altered the meaning of this journey drastically. And that even the true potentialities of Indian cosmopolitanism and urbanity cannot be realized without rediscovering the myth of the village.Less

An Ambiguous Journey to the City : The Village and Othe Odd Ruins of the Self in the Indian Imagination

Ashis Nandy

Published in print: 2007-03-01

This book tells the story of an apparently territorial journey—the one between the village and the city—to capture some of the core fantasies and anxieties of the Indian civilization in the past hundred years. It looks at the vicissitudes of the metaphor of journey; profiles various heroes as they negotiate the transitions from the village to the city and back to the village; and focuses on the psychopathological journey from a poisoned village into a self-annihilating city. It contends that the decline of the village in the creative imagination of Indians in recent decades has altered the meaning of this journey drastically. And that even the true potentialities of Indian cosmopolitanism and urbanity cannot be realized without rediscovering the myth of the village.

Chiang Mai (literally, “new city”) suffered badly in the 1997 Asian financial crisis as the Northern Thai real estate bubble collapsed along with the Thai baht, crushing dreams of a renaissance of ...
More

Chiang Mai (literally, “new city”) suffered badly in the 1997 Asian financial crisis as the Northern Thai real estate bubble collapsed along with the Thai baht, crushing dreams of a renaissance of Northern prosperity. Years later, the architectural ruins of the excesses of the 1990s still stain the skyline, signs of a trauma, brought back vividly by the political crisis of 2006, that haunts efforts to remake the city. For many Chiang Mai residents, new developments harbor the seeds of the crash, manifest in anxious stories of ghosts and criminals who conceal themselves behind the city’s progressive veneer. Hopes for rebirth and fears of decline have their roots in Thai conceptions of progress, which draw from Buddhist and animist ideas of urbanity and sacrality. Cities, in this cosmology, were centers where the charismatic power of kings and animist spirits were grounded; these entities assured progress by imbuing the space with sacred power that would avert disaster. Via revisiting Clifford Geertz’s “theater state,” I argue that new ideas of urban revitalization and questions about history’s forward trajectory reflect anxieties within older, animist and Buddhist ideas of sacred space and centralized power rooted in older, animist and Buddhist models.Less

Ghosts of the New City : Spirits, Urbanity, and the Ruins of Progress in Chiang Mai

Andrew Alan Johnson

Published in print: 2014-07-31

Chiang Mai (literally, “new city”) suffered badly in the 1997 Asian financial crisis as the Northern Thai real estate bubble collapsed along with the Thai baht, crushing dreams of a renaissance of Northern prosperity. Years later, the architectural ruins of the excesses of the 1990s still stain the skyline, signs of a trauma, brought back vividly by the political crisis of 2006, that haunts efforts to remake the city. For many Chiang Mai residents, new developments harbor the seeds of the crash, manifest in anxious stories of ghosts and criminals who conceal themselves behind the city’s progressive veneer. Hopes for rebirth and fears of decline have their roots in Thai conceptions of progress, which draw from Buddhist and animist ideas of urbanity and sacrality. Cities, in this cosmology, were centers where the charismatic power of kings and animist spirits were grounded; these entities assured progress by imbuing the space with sacred power that would avert disaster. Via revisiting Clifford Geertz’s “theater state,” I argue that new ideas of urban revitalization and questions about history’s forward trajectory reflect anxieties within older, animist and Buddhist ideas of sacred space and centralized power rooted in older, animist and Buddhist models.

When seen in light of the long history of center-oriented, charismatic space, the Northern Thai culture industry, especially that seeking to revitalize the city, is re-enacting the theater state, ...
More

When seen in light of the long history of center-oriented, charismatic space, the Northern Thai culture industry, especially that seeking to revitalize the city, is re-enacting the theater state, attempting to recreate the charismatic potential of the past in order to mobilize it for the future. This leads to a fusion between two cosmologies, or, rather, the adaptation of a past cosmological knowledge to fit the frame of the present. What emerges is a center-oriented, urban notion of progress, one which is juxtaposed to a rural that represents not nostalgia, as it did in European contexts, but the uncanny emergence of ghosts, criminals, and decline.Less

Conclusion : The City Doesn’t Have a Future

Andrew Alan Johnson

Published in print: 2014-07-31

When seen in light of the long history of center-oriented, charismatic space, the Northern Thai culture industry, especially that seeking to revitalize the city, is re-enacting the theater state, attempting to recreate the charismatic potential of the past in order to mobilize it for the future. This leads to a fusion between two cosmologies, or, rather, the adaptation of a past cosmological knowledge to fit the frame of the present. What emerges is a center-oriented, urban notion of progress, one which is juxtaposed to a rural that represents not nostalgia, as it did in European contexts, but the uncanny emergence of ghosts, criminals, and decline.

Suicide is an important public health problem in China: it is the fifth leading cause of death, and over 30% of the world's suicide deaths take place in China. This chapter reports the ...
More

Suicide is an important public health problem in China: it is the fifth leading cause of death, and over 30% of the world's suicide deaths take place in China. This chapter reports the epidemiological profile of suicide in China based on detailed mortality statistics provided by the Ministry of Health of China as well as data from Shanghai. The chapter examines suicide rates based on age, gender, urbanity, and marital status and compares the results with findings from the West to highlight the similarities and differences between China and other countries.Less

Mainland China

Ka Y. LiuPaul S. F. Yip

Published in print: 2008-09-01

Suicide is an important public health problem in China: it is the fifth leading cause of death, and over 30% of the world's suicide deaths take place in China. This chapter reports the epidemiological profile of suicide in China based on detailed mortality statistics provided by the Ministry of Health of China as well as data from Shanghai. The chapter examines suicide rates based on age, gender, urbanity, and marital status and compares the results with findings from the West to highlight the similarities and differences between China and other countries.

This chapter explains that most Americans wealthy enough to travel for pleasure in the mid-nineteenth century stayed only at the best city hotels, for lodging at a “first-class” hostelry was “a ...
More

This chapter explains that most Americans wealthy enough to travel for pleasure in the mid-nineteenth century stayed only at the best city hotels, for lodging at a “first-class” hostelry was “a strong presumption of social availability.” Where the traveler “stopped” while in the city signaled his or her social status to the local elite, many of whom resided semipermanently at such fine hotels. First-class city hotels undermined the sociospatial ideal that joined refinement and republicanism by providing the former for a fee. As their urbanity and commercialism became more apparent, their claim to contain a microcosm of the republic dissolved. Hotels created physical and social spaces not just open to transients but dedicated to them, and increasingly distinct from the spaces that locals used.Less

At Home in the City: First-Class Urban Hotels, 1850–1915

Catherine Cocks

Published in print: 2001-09-19

This chapter explains that most Americans wealthy enough to travel for pleasure in the mid-nineteenth century stayed only at the best city hotels, for lodging at a “first-class” hostelry was “a strong presumption of social availability.” Where the traveler “stopped” while in the city signaled his or her social status to the local elite, many of whom resided semipermanently at such fine hotels. First-class city hotels undermined the sociospatial ideal that joined refinement and republicanism by providing the former for a fee. As their urbanity and commercialism became more apparent, their claim to contain a microcosm of the republic dissolved. Hotels created physical and social spaces not just open to transients but dedicated to them, and increasingly distinct from the spaces that locals used.

This chapter discusses the novel planning measures that have been used to encourage social encounter and social mix in the new-build district of HafenCity in Hamburg, Germany. HafenCity is the ...
More

This chapter discusses the novel planning measures that have been used to encourage social encounter and social mix in the new-build district of HafenCity in Hamburg, Germany. HafenCity is the largest redevelopment project in Europe; when complete, it will double the size of Hamburg's central city or downtown area. The CEO of HafenCity has developed a complex agenda for social mix in HafenCity; this includes tenurial mixing, functional mixing (e.g. commercial and residential) and a mixing of social groups (by age, ethnicity, identity, cycle in life course, etc). The chapter outlines the vision for social mixing in HafenCity — where it came from, how it was conceptualised and the forms of governance and funding that were needed to put it in place. Moreover, HafenCity has undertaken its own research to investigate the successes and failures of its social mix agenda — the initial results from this research are discussed. And finally, the chapter outlines lessons to be learnt from ‘planning urbanity’ in HafenCity.Less

Social mix and encounter capacity – a pragmatic social model for a new downtown: the example of HafenCity Hamburg

Bruns-berentelg Jürgen

Published in print: 2011-10-19

This chapter discusses the novel planning measures that have been used to encourage social encounter and social mix in the new-build district of HafenCity in Hamburg, Germany. HafenCity is the largest redevelopment project in Europe; when complete, it will double the size of Hamburg's central city or downtown area. The CEO of HafenCity has developed a complex agenda for social mix in HafenCity; this includes tenurial mixing, functional mixing (e.g. commercial and residential) and a mixing of social groups (by age, ethnicity, identity, cycle in life course, etc). The chapter outlines the vision for social mixing in HafenCity — where it came from, how it was conceptualised and the forms of governance and funding that were needed to put it in place. Moreover, HafenCity has undertaken its own research to investigate the successes and failures of its social mix agenda — the initial results from this research are discussed. And finally, the chapter outlines lessons to be learnt from ‘planning urbanity’ in HafenCity.

The introduction engages urban theories both global and local, including Mumford’s urban scenes, Lefebvre’s structures of enchantment, Weber’s de-enchantment, Certeau’s pedestrian enunciations, Soja’s post-metropolis, Simone’s people as infrastructure, Robinson’s ordinary city, Bremner’s insurgent urbanism, Foster’s socio-nature, Titlestad’s pyscho-geography,Landau‘s tactical cosmopolitan, and Mbembe and Nuttall’s Afropolis to define the edgy city. “Edgy” applies not only to pervasive nervousness about crime, change, and disorder in a divided city, but also to the history of capital speculation on the boundaries of districts, and on property values that have created boom and bust cycles since the gold mining camps of 1886, and which have deepened disparities of wealth and access in present-day urban and peri-urban South Africa.Less

Introduction: Imagining the Edgy City

Loren Kruger

Published in print: 2013-11-20

The introduction engages urban theories both global and local, including Mumford’s urban scenes, Lefebvre’s structures of enchantment, Weber’s de-enchantment, Certeau’s pedestrian enunciations, Soja’s post-metropolis, Simone’s people as infrastructure, Robinson’s ordinary city, Bremner’s insurgent urbanism, Foster’s socio-nature, Titlestad’s pyscho-geography,Landau‘s tactical cosmopolitan, and Mbembe and Nuttall’s Afropolis to define the edgy city. “Edgy” applies not only to pervasive nervousness about crime, change, and disorder in a divided city, but also to the history of capital speculation on the boundaries of districts, and on property values that have created boom and bust cycles since the gold mining camps of 1886, and which have deepened disparities of wealth and access in present-day urban and peri-urban South Africa.

Current systems to classify land are insufficient, as is the delineation of Earth's surface into discrete categories of land covers and uses, because they ignore the multiple functions that land ...
More

Current systems to classify land are insufficient, as is the delineation of Earth's surface into discrete categories of land covers and uses, because they ignore the multiple functions that land provides and the movement of people, materials, information, and energy they facilitate. To address sustainability challenges related to urban lifestyles, livelihoods, connectivity, and places, new conceptualizations are needed which have the potential to acknowledge and redefine the extent, intensity, and quality of urban-ness on Earth. This chapter proposes a framework which focuses on people and institutions as agents of change and examines changes in urban lifestyles and livelihoods over larger regions, regardless of whether an area is delineated as “urban” or “rural.” It views urbanization and the urban era to be an integrated system and provides a multivariable approach to urbanity. It discusses a new land ethic and highlights challenges that exist to facilitate a sustainability transition. Published in the Strungmann Forum Reports Series.Less

Reconceptualizing Land for Sustainable Urbanity

Published in print: 2014-03-31

Current systems to classify land are insufficient, as is the delineation of Earth's surface into discrete categories of land covers and uses, because they ignore the multiple functions that land provides and the movement of people, materials, information, and energy they facilitate. To address sustainability challenges related to urban lifestyles, livelihoods, connectivity, and places, new conceptualizations are needed which have the potential to acknowledge and redefine the extent, intensity, and quality of urban-ness on Earth. This chapter proposes a framework which focuses on people and institutions as agents of change and examines changes in urban lifestyles and livelihoods over larger regions, regardless of whether an area is delineated as “urban” or “rural.” It views urbanization and the urban era to be an integrated system and provides a multivariable approach to urbanity. It discusses a new land ethic and highlights challenges that exist to facilitate a sustainability transition. Published in the Strungmann Forum Reports Series.

The introduction discusses the politics of urbanity surrounding Dubai and its transition from a traditionalist state to a rapidly urbanizing global city operating under neoliberalist ideologies. ...
More

The introduction discusses the politics of urbanity surrounding Dubai and its transition from a traditionalist state to a rapidly urbanizing global city operating under neoliberalist ideologies. Studies into the city have often eschewed the contexts of empire and capital in favor of the traditional—obscuring the city’s complexities as a result. Dubai (and the Arab Gulf in general) had previously resisted reforms in anticolonial fervor, although in recent years modernity has taken hold of the region, ushering in a state of “orientalism in reverse” for a city once considered to be suspended in time and mysteriously Orient. Dubai is a dynamic, rapidly modernizing global city subject to reform projects—most notably from the “starchitects”—representing the allure of progress in spatial dimensions. Yet the city also struggles with the old questions of modernity and independence within a new, rising hegemony in the postcolonial state.Less

Dubai Contexts and Contestations

Ahmed Kanna

Published in print: 2011-06-15

The introduction discusses the politics of urbanity surrounding Dubai and its transition from a traditionalist state to a rapidly urbanizing global city operating under neoliberalist ideologies. Studies into the city have often eschewed the contexts of empire and capital in favor of the traditional—obscuring the city’s complexities as a result. Dubai (and the Arab Gulf in general) had previously resisted reforms in anticolonial fervor, although in recent years modernity has taken hold of the region, ushering in a state of “orientalism in reverse” for a city once considered to be suspended in time and mysteriously Orient. Dubai is a dynamic, rapidly modernizing global city subject to reform projects—most notably from the “starchitects”—representing the allure of progress in spatial dimensions. Yet the city also struggles with the old questions of modernity and independence within a new, rising hegemony in the postcolonial state.

This chapter presents empirical and theoretical reflection on the key findings of the research. Important similarities and differences in the case study empirical revelations are emphasised. ...
More

This chapter presents empirical and theoretical reflection on the key findings of the research. Important similarities and differences in the case study empirical revelations are emphasised. Methodological conclusions allow the assessment of a Lefebvrian approach to understanding the creation of urban public space and post-industrial transformation. The conlcusions take care not to offer unsubstantiated sweeping generalisations but do show how the findings have importance beyond the three cities. The chapter explains the theoretical contributions made by the book and offers a programme for future research. In concluding, the book returns to the importance of urban public space for convivial urbanity and for democratic cohesion in relatively open and tolerant societies. Differential space is seen and comprehended in a new light.Less

Conclusions: Differential space implications

Michael Edema Leary-Owhin

Published in print: 2016-02-26

This chapter presents empirical and theoretical reflection on the key findings of the research. Important similarities and differences in the case study empirical revelations are emphasised. Methodological conclusions allow the assessment of a Lefebvrian approach to understanding the creation of urban public space and post-industrial transformation. The conlcusions take care not to offer unsubstantiated sweeping generalisations but do show how the findings have importance beyond the three cities. The chapter explains the theoretical contributions made by the book and offers a programme for future research. In concluding, the book returns to the importance of urban public space for convivial urbanity and for democratic cohesion in relatively open and tolerant societies. Differential space is seen and comprehended in a new light.